


With Her

by Demon Dreams (ScribeAzari)



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: F/M, Slice of Life, Tom's rambling pov, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 04:29:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17419136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScribeAzari/pseuds/Demon%20Dreams
Summary: Life is difficult in the studio, but teamwork and care can bring light to even the dingiest settings.





	With Her

It was no use pretending that he could remember how she looked under the summer sun, or what colour her eyes had used to be. Not when the colour had drained from the world, a distant, hazy dream as hard to grasp as one of the floating motes her seeing tool revealed. He couldn’t remember the sun anyway, not the real one - but if anything came close in this place, it was being beside her.

Sometimes, he wondered whether he was deluding himself, whether he’d ever been anyone else at all. Other times, he was certain - a flicker of memory set far from the studio drifting to the surface, teasing in its brief glimpse of freedom - he’d have just sat in one place for uncounted time trying to grasp it, if it wasn’t for her drawing him back out of himself.

She was in his memories, when they did appear. At least, she usually was. They could be sitting together on the grass, ice creams in hand - or talking about something, anything - even making plans he might not have dared voice now even if he  _ could _ still speak. Any time he tried to focus on her, though, he couldn’t see who she’d been. The angel she’d been molded into emerged instead, though he felt sure that was out of place. It was frustrating, and more than a little confusing. Why couldn’t he just make sense of things?

At least he had memories at all.  _ She _ didn’t. That actually hurt, when he thought about it, clenching within his chest. She’d grown quite close with him in the time they’d spent together in this hell, even called him by his own name when he couldn’t speak it - but she had nothing of before. It felt as though they’d both lost something very precious, in that, but he couldn’t put a name to it.

She could always tell when he was brooding, even if he couldn’t voice it, couldn’t tell her what was wrong. She’d hold him close, rubbing his back as she hummed a familiar old melody, and it felt as though this had been something they’d shared before. It still hurt, but at least she was still there with him, even now. He just had to believe that, in time, they could recapture more than the bones of what had been stolen from them.

They’d had to move again recently - they were only just unpacking their meagre things from the journey after their last encounter. Not the Ink Demon, thankfully, but almost as bad. The Prophet had spotted her on her last foraging trip, from what she’d told him, and followed her almost to their door before she’d lost him. He didn’t quite know what that guy’s deal was, but he didn’t want to take the chance he could be reasoned with when the odds of this place were already always so stacked.

She said it might put things in perspective if they could only get an understanding of what drove the others in the studio, and in principle, he agreed with her. It would certainly make it easier to avoid them all if they knew how everyone ticked. Learning about such things was a very risky business, though. There was only so much snooping they could do before they were noticed, after all.

Still, he had to give her credit. Taking some time to observe  _ had _ turned up some useful tidbits - for one thing, that the demon couldn’t actually see. Not on his own, anyway. Watching from a distance, or from within those miracle stations that had sprung up at some point, they’d come to realise that Bendy had no working eyes on his face. He seemed drawn to  _ sound, _ instead, horns shifting as he tracked whatever unfortunate had disturbed him.

At first, they’d thought that meant he was wholly blind - that seemed like common sense, after all. Alas, this was hardly the sort of place for  _ that _ kind of reasoning. It was Tom who’d discovered the loophole, by chance passing a cutout of the demon while attempting to silently sneak away from the real deal. Bendy had detected him at once, whirling to face him - Tom couldn’t remember the last time he’d run so fast.

Communicating what he’d learned to her was… difficult, but she was patient. He had the feeling she’d always been patient, somehow. He’d wanted to start blindfolding or obscuring the cutouts, to give them extra chances to sneak through the halls undetected, but the thought of it alarmed her when he managed to get his idea across.

What if it only succeeded in focusing his attention to the place his vision was being blotted? They’d passed cutouts many times without him appearing, so perhaps he couldn’t focus on all of them at once. He had to admit, her points made a certain amount of sense and he relented. The risks were too great.

She did so much for him, cared so much - it was astonishing, in a place like this, and there was no way he could ever take her for granted. She’d pulled him out of more scrapes than he could count, calmed him when the stress got too much to bear alone, even helped him find a replacement for the arm that hadn’t formed properly when he’d emerged. He wasn’t sure he deserved her, but she was always there for him.

Whenever he could, he tried to do things for her, too, to make her smile. There weren’t as many things he could do for her in a place like this as outside, he was sure, but even he was hazy on what opportunities they were missing. Often, he’d stand lookout for her, or make her drawings based on what little he recalled of the outside. They’d spoken about pets once, though, he was almost certain. What could he find for a pet?

Anything shaped like them was right out, naturally, but… the last time they’d been down deep, he’d seen an inky figure actually fishing in the ink. Did that mean there were fish there? Their newest hiding place  _ did _ contain something he was inclined to think of as a fish tank…  
  
The effort he’d taken and risks he’d run just to get actual water and inky fish were all worth it when she came back from gathering soup to see what he’d done. Her entire face lit up with surprised delight, and she rushed to his side, dropping the cans to enfold him in a tight hug. Company that didn’t try to kill you was precious in a place like this, even if they  _ were _ just fish. He smiled softly, wrapping his arms around her, and hoped this moment of happiness could last.


End file.
